If you actually get down to the nitty-gritty of the average Pakistani, the average Indian, the average whoever, what you really do know emotionally is that they're exactly the same.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
There are distinctions between Indian and Pakistani writers.
Sadly, Indians are not very easily accepted in Pakistan, and that has a lot to do with the governments.
Pakistani politics is complicated, and I think it's not something a foreigner can easily assimilate and understand.
Either you're this, or you're that: either you're - if you're a Pakistani, you're a terrorist; if you're an American, you might be a militarist. Those kind of prisms that we see each other through are really stultifying, and they don't often show the complexity and the incredible warmth and encompassing of the world.
Middle-class Pakistani cultural life is what I've seen, what I know - they're not all screaming faceless mullahs. It's disturbing that in American films, the character on the other side is not even named.
The Pakistanis are very resilient people.
People from North India are generally known to be aggressive and emotional.
When I was growing up, I felt like I had to qualify it and say I'm British-Pakistani. But now I kind of feel like, in this day in age, this is what British looks like. It looks like me; it looks like Idris Elba, and hopefully through Nasir Khan, people will see that that's what an American can look like as well.
You must keep in mind that Pakistan has suffered the aftermaths of the Cold War, and that Cold War had left deep imprints on our society. We were the worst sufferers from the ills of the Afghan war.
I'm not a representative of Pakistan; I'm just an example that Pakistanis are different from each other. I believe it in my fiction and I believe it personally.